Will The Jones Street Mob maintain its iron grip on state GOP?
We shall see.
The state Republican Party is in the midst of updating and revising its primary governing document — The Plan of Organization (PoO).
We’ve talked with quite a few activists frustrated with the current arrangement regarding internal votes dealing with party operations. A policy change can come up for consideration before the party’s Executive Committee. If the powers-that-be in the now-very-vetoable majority in the General Assembly don’t like that proposed change, they can marshal the troops from their respective caucuses to march over to the party meeting and vote as-instructed. Any sort of grassroots-inspired rebellion can be crushed by sending over as many as 100 legislators.
Party sources tell me that, right now, county organizations can send up to one-delegate-per-8000-registered Republicans-in-the-county to a NCGOP Executive Committee meeting. Revisions now being considered (page 25) change the ratio from 1 per 8000 to 1 per 16,000. Obviously, a smaller number of folks from outside the Raleigh beltline. Proponents of the change say it would make for a more manageable committee meeting. (I’ll bet.)
As far as the legislators go, they will be limited to votes equal to 15 percent of the overall number of out-of-town attendees (page 17). Let’s say an Executive Committee meeting is attended by 165 delegates. Legislators would then have a total of 25 votes to use on any issues that come for a vote before the committee.
You can be sure that the electeds from Jones Street will vote as-instructed by Berger & co. (Just look at how obedient they are each day the legislature is in session. It’s safe to say most of them are more scared of Phil Berger and his crew than they are of their own constituents.)
Raleigh is scared to death of the thought of the NCGOP actually being taken over by the little people outside the beltline. The elected don’t need — and don’t deserve — all of this autocratic power within the party apparatus.
Right now, it’s Phil and Destin and Timmy’s will being carried out. The will of real, everyday, working people needs to be recognized and carried out.
If we have some electeds who really want a spot on the party’s Executive Committee, let them go back home and work for it like anyone else would have to.
Keep an eye on this PoO rewrite. The latest drafts are on the party’s website. A final vote should happen at the state convention this June. If you’ve had enough of your hard work and your personal beliefs being spat upon by Raleigh elites, this is your opportunity to stake your claim to the party you love.
Will the NCGOP move away from shakedowns and conservative purges and toward championing an actual conservative agenda? It’s all up to you.
I have to send you a new photo.
I can understand the concern here. However as the state and the GOP grows
the Executive Committee keeps growing. It’s well more than 500 people now I think and it struggles to meet quorum. The size needs to be reduced to keep it a functioning relevant body.
However, perhaps some kind of compromise can keep the ratio of grassroots activists to legislators the same.
Sorry, Dallas. This doesn’t read NOR sound very enticing. Do you TRUST insiders in this party? My belief is, NO GRASSROOTS do! And with good reason.
.Do you truly believe the state convention has been managed well under the current authorities?
It’s SAFE to say most of them are more scared of Phil Berger and his crew than they are of their own constituents? Seriously?
That’s putting it mildly.
The only way the legislators will be more scared of their constituents than they are of the Berger Mafia is if they’re confronted, questioned, embarrassed – then heckled and boo’d off the stage in their own district by their constituents. But most conservatives will not behave in this manner.
No, we’ll just let those who are supposed to be representing us be pulled around by the nose by King Berger. That’s nicer.
The first time I served on the NCGOP Plan of Organization committee, back in 1983, the committee came within one vote of removing all legislators as automatic members of the Executive Committee. In those days there were a lot fewer of them and most had come up through party ranks. There was also a whole lot less central control by the legislative leadership. Even then there was a big appetite to remove them. If not for an impassioned plea by State Rep. Reid Poovey (R-Catawba) calling the legislators “the frontline troops”, the vote in the committee to remove them would have passed.
Now, we see many more legislators, who make up a larger part of the Executive Committee, a large number of them had little or nothing to do with the party organization before being elected to the legislature, and the domination by legislative leadership is huge. As Speaker, Thom Tillis used to even call House Caucus meetings an hour before GOP ExCom meetings at the same location to dragoon members into coming if there was something on the NCGOP agenda he wanted to throw his weight around on. There is a whole lot more reason now than there was in 1983 to reconsider whether legislators should be automatic members of the ExCom.
One of the most imperative reforms the party needs is to revisit this issue.
Another huge problem with this Plan of Organization draft is that it makes it more difficult to censure wayward politicians, as the Central Committee did to Richard Burr and the state convention did more recently with Thom Tillis. It also deletes the provisions to hold elected officials guilty of party disloyalty, as was done by the ExCom to Richard Morgan and as should be done to Phil Berger for his flagrant endorsement of a liberal Democrat judge against a conservative Republican challenger.
This is important with the growing number of RINOs or Undocumented Democrats. The Wyoming GOP censured LIz Cheney. The Alaska GOP censured Lisa Murkowski. The Oklahoma GOP “withdrew its support” from Jim Lankford. We censured Thom Tillis. If sleazy politicians want to prostitute themselves to the special interests or the Democrats, the grassroots party base needs to be able to express their disapproval.
This draft is a protection racket on wayward leftist Republican politicians. It needs to be defeated.
One could take a page from the example set by alienated conservatives in southern Granville county. They organized and threw their RINO out of the statehouse skipping that part of their ballot or voting Libertarian, breaking the supermajority in the process. Like Reagan said, if you can’t make them see the light, let ‘em feel the heat.